Week in the life

I always forget this posts the first pictures I upload at the tail end of the photo stream...

I'm attempting another week in the life journaling. So far, it hasn't been bad although I keep forgetting to take pictures of things.

My days are full. I feel like I've been in a hurry to get things done this week - I get home from my jobs after 5 most of the time. Monday Gary and Betsy came out to help with the house and for supper. Tuesday I had a Dr. appt, and then errands to run - a tire to drop off and pick up again, garage sale items to drop off, and pizza to pick up and get back home around 6. Jason, Ernest, Shane A. and his offspring were here for supper. Wednesday Calvin decided to come for supper. But...it was just the 2 of us tonight!

And John wondered why I was so anxious to head home today. Honestly, I am SO glad I'm not working tomorrow. Dan and Rachel Pamer are coming out Saturday so I need to get the house ready for guests.

After all this whining (yes, I know, I'm being very self-indulgent), I came across a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson that helped me chill just a bit:

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

And we are taking the nephs to the Gamma Phi Circus in Normal tomorrow!!!!!!!!! Looking forward to tomorrow...

As promised, a new post!

So what do you think of my gorgeous and homemade china hutch? Jen probably needs to come and help me arrange my dishes more creatively and attractively.

The second picture is our fried goat cheese appetizer at The Bread Company in Champaign. Quite delicious.

And the papier mache gazelle is from Anthro. I'm hoping that I can recreate something like that in the future for a fraction of what this little guy would cost me.

Was this short enough for you, Wesley?

Well, Wes, I'll see if I can put some interesting information on this post for you.

Green smoothie time. I made some after work today for me and Jen to take to Champaign tomorrow morning. I didn't have any bananas though so I substituted strawberries, making it not quite so green. Anyway, it will be even more delicious like this.

The fire trucks at our house would be Jeremy's doing. He was burning the pasture and things got a little out of hand...Nothing structural burnt though. A couple of the fire trucks got stuck in the field so it was a good thing Jeff Mueller was around with a backhoe to keep them moving. I was under strict instructions not to put anything about this on the blog but considering the fact that at the Leman cousin get together last night, we talked of little else, I'm guessing he won't be able to help himself. He'll talk about it. So your instructions are NOT TO MENTION IT tomorrow night and see if he brings it up.

I swung by Strawberry Fields in Urbana yesterday and got my kale and some strawberries. I was quite frankly, not impressed with their berries. The blueberries looked pathetic really. I took a picture of these cool tea canisters. They could be repurposed for so many cool things, right ladies? SF has a large selection of beauty supplies too - and even more beautiful were the free samples. I snagged a vanilla and blood orange body milk - smelled divine.

Also yesterday, I had the foresight to take some leftovers to work for lunch. So did Alaa. I have no idea what the names of his stuff are but the round thing was good. It's sticky rice with spices wrapped around turkey (ground and fried) and almond slices and then it's fried. The flat thing was some kind of bread dough with ground lamb and herbs mixed together. It was a little heavy on the parsley so I wasn't a fan. We shared some with Seka and Alla (the Russian) and this morning Alla told me "thank God" I put the Italian beef on the plate since she didn't like the other stuff. :)

Russians have a saying, according to Alla, that says something like, "You don't wait until you're on the toilet to look for the paper. You get that first." This came up yesterday because the bistro, at around 11, realized that they needed hummus. For lunch. That day. As it happened, we didn't have any chickpeas at the bakehouse so Seka had to run to the bistro and get some and then bring them to Alaa so he could get hummus made in time and then run the hummus back over. Such is life at Pekara.

My latest projects

So now that I'm liberated on Fridays (mostly, seeing as how I still go to the turkey farm), I found other ways to kill time.

Such as channeling Martha Stewart and making cherry blossoms from pink and salmon colored vellum. As you can tell, I need to find a better twig to mount them on, but for now, that will just have to work. I broke the utility knife at the turkey farm cutting this cherry branch off. :( Oops.

Then I went to Macy's yesterday since they were having a sale and bought some adorable kid clothes. Mixed gender of course. It would have been more fun to know exactly who to buy them for but I guess being surprised can be fun.

Tonight we're eating supper with Jeremy's family and I volunteered to bring dessert. Naturally. And I decided to try MS's tiramisu cupcakes. I don't like the frosting plain - I don't really like mascarpone cheese that well but the overall effect is pretty good. I'll probably have leftovers that I'll take to set tables at church tomorrow...